AT&T, Nokia and Microsoft have a lot riding on the success of the new Lumia 900 Windows phone.
It is the flagship phone born out of the new alliance between Nokia and Microsoft last year, meant to trumpet the beginning of a new era in smartphones and blow away rivals Apple and Google.
Let’s just say it’s off to a rocky start.
First, for some incredibly stupid reason AT&T decided to launch the phone in the United States on Sunday, April 8th. Which just happened to be Easter Sunday, a day when many AT&T retail stores were closed. D’oh!
Second, for the few folks who were able to purchase the phone (which was subsidized down to $99 with a 2-year contract) a fatal flaw began appearing in many of the handsets: 3G data would not work. Some folks were able to get data working after a hard reset or a factory restore, but it seemed only temporary.
Yesterday Nokia announced that they had identified a software issue that was causing the data glitch, and to make it up to customers they were promising to switch their phone out with a new on in the next couple of weeks, and would be issuing a $100 credit to the customers, making the phone virtually free.
This financial setback comes after AT&T had pledged over $150 million dollars to promote and launch the Lumia 900, more than they spent on the launch of the iPhone.
Today Nokia warned investors to expect lower-than-hoped Q1 earnings based on lackluster smartphone sales. Ouch. Read more over at TechCrunch.
No comments